Becoming better listeners

When was the last time you listened to someone? Really listened? Truly listened to all that the other person said and more importantly, left unsaid? The sad part is that many of us believe ourselves to be good listeners, little realising that what we have heard may be just the tip of the iceberg and unaware of the whole submerged mountain of information that we have missed.

Do these listening patterns seem familiar to you: We listen and in the process of listening, constantly think of how to respond? So much so that we often cut in-between the other persons talk, just to have our say. I’m sure there are some of us who take pride in our multitasking abilities, the ability to listen in the midst of doing a zillion other activities. Are we even aware that we could have lost out on a whole lot of information in this process?

Why listen? Much has been said and written about the importance of listening – at work, in teams, with customers etc. It all boils down to one reason – it is to establish a relationship based on trust and respect, be it with anybody – child, parent, colleague, friend, partner. That being the aim, I ought to be most concerned, not at what I've listened to and caught on, but on what I could have missed out. Because my map of the world is different from yours. And it becomes essential for me to get an inkling of your map of the world to even start the process of trust and relationship building.

What would be of immense value to me as a listener would be to leave the self aside and focus my attention on what is being said. An aid to the process would be to have a blank white board in my mind, on which the other person’s words are written, in exactly the way that they are being said. And on that white board, I underline, what I think are important words, and repeat them back in exactly the same way, just so we both know that we are looking at the same map of the world. And while I fill in the white board with the words being spoken, the camera of my mind also clicks images of the nuances of expressions flitting across the person’s face. 

And together, the words and the images come together to form a beautiful collage in my mind, which tell me a story - the story of the other persons experience and views.  A story which I periodically check with the other person to see if I’ve got it right. And once the collage is ready, I look at it, take my understanding of it and then decide my response.
This process, if attempted, goes a long way to enable genuine listening among persons. A listening which is not done for the listener’s sake alone, but a listening which aims to establish trust & respect and through it, the foundation of a solid relationship.